“But I also realize that winning doesn't always mean getting first place; it means getting the best out of yourself.” ― Meb Keflezighi

Race the Landing Series #5 (22:51)

Last Thursday was the final race of the series. I’m so sad to see this series end as it is one of my favorites of the summer. I’ve also had such a great time racing with Lana who works the weekend and can’t participate in Saturday morning races. I’ve loved seeing our progression in this heat and how hard we’ve been working. This was a special race because Lana’s 30th birthday was the next day. We celebrated by having her family join us for the race and boy did it make for such a fun night.

Lana picked me up and we headed out for another hot and humid Thursday evening race. When we got there we picked up our bibs and hung out a little before we did our warm up. My watch was about dead so I decided to forgo tracking our warm up to hopefully keep my watch alive throughout the race. The warmup felt kind of hard, I was dreading what we were about to encounter with this race. Every week I think it feels better outside and as soon as we warm up, I’m dripping sweat and can barely breath. This just goes to show how important that warm up is for me. I need that to get my leg muscles moving, my body adjusted to the heat, and my lungs expanding. You don’t want to spend the first mile and a half of a 5k getting your body adjusted to conditions.

Along with Lana was her hubby, brother, future sister-in-law, and a few friends. We had such a great group out on the course and I was really excited to see everyone finish and experience their first race the landing. This course is absolutely beautiful and I love when new people come out and get to experience the beauty of it. Sometimes I wish I would just slow down on the course and really take it in as well as take pictures. BUT we all know this girl aint slowing down so I leave the picture taking to Brian Fancher of http://brianfancher.photoshelter.com/

Mile 1: no clue what my splits were, about half a mile in my watch beeped and it gave me the screen of death. I had told Lana before we headed out that I may have to rely on her to pace me because I didn’t want to slack or go out too fast without having my watch to keep me accountable. Truth: I should be running more often without my watch to become more in tune with my body. However, I’m a stats junkie and if it’s not logged on my app, in my mind, that run never happened. I’m guessing we were going out around a 7:12 pace. We usually start somewhere between 7:12-7:15 pace. I felt okay with this mile and just kept up with Lana.

Mile 2: Lana and I were still in sync striding along the course. We ran by Brian and tried our hardest to get a real good bad ass looking picture because we knew this would be the last time that we got to have a picture by him this year. I can’t rave enough about Brian and his incredible skill. If you ever get the chance to run a race that he is photographing, DO IT! You will never regret getting a fabulous race picture of yourself. Lana drove me this mile but I could feel myself pulling back just a little.

Images from the 5th and final race of the 2016 Race the Landing 5k series at Charlestowne Landing in Charleston, SC.

Mile 3: Halfway through this mile I watched Lana take off and I did my usual scream “go get it Lana!!” I love watching her thrive. I could see her the entire way to the finish line and I watched her surge with such power to the finish line. I am beyond proud of my training partner and friend. I dug deep to keep myself going as fast as I could because let’s be honest… at this point my brain was just saying “beer. beer. beer. beer”

I finished this one in 22:51!

Here are my times from the 5 races

#1: 21:31

#2: 21:36

#3: 23:33

#4: 22:09

#5: 22:51

The first race was the coolest of all the races and that was my base to start with but I really wont complain with finishing 1:20 off from where I started since these races were hot and humid!! It’s giving me such confidence going into the fall to see where I can push myself to.

Once we were done racing, we grabbed our medals, and watched some of our friends come across the finish line. Everyone had such a good time racing the course and we all seriously were looking forward to a cold beverage.

Dinner that night was hamburger, pulled pork, chicken, or hot dogs. We also had some DELICIOUS beer from Tradesman Brewing. Seriously the beer that we had was phenomenal. I’m definitely going to have to travel out to Folly to check out their brewery now. The awards this week were some pretty epic swords. The best part of the night was everyone at our table placed in their respective age groups. We had a ball getting Brian to take some fun pictures of all of us and our sweet swords.

Images from the 5th and final race of the 2016 Race the Landing 5k series at Charlestowne Landing in Charleston, SC.Images from the 5th and final race of the 2016 Race the Landing 5k series at Charlestowne Landing in Charleston, SC.

We also finished the night off with the series awards which are given to the top overall male and female as well as the top person in each age group who ran the whole series. I ended up placing for my age group (25-29) and taking home a sweet towel that had the series logo on it.

Another fun race in the books with lots of great friends, good beer, and awesome memories. I can’t wait to run this one again next year.